Microwave Baked Apples with Cinnamon, Ready in 12 Minutes

Microwave baked apples are chunks of apple tossed with butter, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and cooked in the microwave until they are tender and sitting in their own caramel sauce, which takes about seven minutes instead of the forty an oven needs. Three apples make three servings, and the whole dessert is in glasses with ice cream on top twelve minutes after you pick up the knife.

In short, microwave baked apples are apple chunks cooked with butter, sugar and cinnamon in one bowl. They take 12 minutes, serve 3 and run about 190 calories a serving before the ice cream.

Cutting the apples into chunks rather than cooking them whole is what makes the microwave version work: chunks cook through in minutes, and the butter and sugar melt into a sauce around them. In glasses under vanilla ice cream, as in the photographs, they pass for a dessert that took real effort.

Pictured: the apples spooned into glass dessert cups and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, with a cinnamon stick alongside. The recipe card cooks them in one bowl; the ice cream is an optional topping, and the glasses are just the prettiest way to serve them.

Why Microwave Baked Apples Work

An oven bakes an apple from the outside in, which is why a whole baked apple needs forty minutes and a lot of basting before the center softens. A microwave heats the water inside the fruit directly, so apple chunks soften from within in a few minutes, and the juice they release mixes with the melted butter and sugar to make a sauce without any reduction on the stove.

Chunks matter for a second reason. Cut to about an inch, they give up their juice quickly and evenly, and they hold their shape once cooked instead of collapsing into applesauce. Thin slices turn mushy; whole apples cook unevenly and burst their skins. An inch is the size in the photographs, and it is the size that still looks like fruit in the glass.

The sugar is doing more than sweetening. Granulated sugar dissolves into the apple juice and butter, and in the heat of the bowl it thickens into a light caramel that coats each piece. Brown sugar works the same way with a deeper flavor. Either one makes microwave baked apples taste cooked rather than merely warmed.

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Ingredient Notes

Five things, all in the flat lay above. Exact quantities are in the recipe card.

• Apples. Three medium apples, about a pound and a half, peeled or not and cut into one-inch chunks. The skin softens in the microwave and adds color, so peeling is a preference rather than a rule. More on choosing them below.
• Butter. Two tablespoons, cut into small pieces so they melt evenly. Salted or unsalted both work; with unsalted, add the pinch of salt.
• Sugar. Two tablespoons of granulated sugar, as pictured, or brown sugar for a darker, more caramel sauce. Maple syrup works too and makes a thinner sauce.
• Ground cinnamon. One teaspoon. It is the flavor people expect from a baked apple, and a teaspoon for three apples is enough to taste without turning gritty.
• Salt. A pinch, which makes the sugar and butter taste like caramel rather than just sweet.
• Vanilla ice cream. Optional, for serving. A scoop on the warm apples, as in the photographs, is the version worth making for guests.
• Cinnamon sticks. Purely for the glass. They look right and smell right, and nobody has to eat them.

Which Apples to Use

A firm apple that holds its shape when cooked is what you want, and the sweet-tart kinds give the best balance against the sugar. Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, Braeburn, Pink Lady and Jonagold all hold up well in the microwave. Golden Delicious, the pale green apple in the photographs, is softer but keeps its chunks if you stop at the tender stage, and it needs a little less sugar. The US Apple Association’s guide to apple varieties is a good reference if you are choosing from an unfamiliar bin.

The apples to avoid are the soft, mealy ones: Red Delicious and McIntosh both turn to applesauce in a few minutes. Mixing two kinds, one tart and one sweet, gives the most interesting bowl, and it is a good way to use up the odd apple from the fruit drawer.

Size matters less than firmness, but keep the chunks even. One large apple and two small ones cut to the same inch cook in the same time; one apple cut big and two cut small do not.

How To Make Microwave Baked Apples

Core the apples and cut them into chunks of about an inch, peeling first if you prefer them smooth, and put them in a large microwave-safe bowl. Glass or ceramic is best; the bowl needs room for the apples to be stirred and for the sauce to bubble.

First, scatter the pieces of butter over the apples. Next, sprinkle over the sugar. Then add the cinnamon and the pinch of salt, and after that toss everything together with a spoon until the apples are coated and the cinnamon is no longer sitting in one patch.

Cover the bowl loosely with a microwave-safe plate or a vented lid and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Stir, bringing the pieces from the bottom to the top, and microwave for 1 to 2 minutes more, until the apples are tender when pierced with a fork and the butter and sugar have become a glossy sauce. Finally, let the bowl stand for 2 minutes, because the apples finish softening in the residual heat and the sauce thickens as it cools.

Serving in Glasses with Ice Cream (Pictured)

Spoon the warm apples and their sauce into three glass dessert cups or small glasses, leaving a little room at the top. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to each, so it starts to melt into the sauce, and tuck a cinnamon stick in beside it. The contrast of warm apples and cold ice cream is the whole point, so serve them straight away. The glasses are only presentation; a bowl works just as well on a weeknight.

How To Tell When Microwave Baked Apples Are Done

Microwave baked apples are done when a fork slides in with a little pressure and the chunks still hold their shape, which takes 6 to 7 minutes on high for three apples. They should give way the way a cooked potato does when lifted, the way a cooked potato does; they should not fall apart on the fork and they should not need sawing. The pieces turn translucent at the edges and a shade darker from the cinnamon and the sauce.

The sauce is the second sign. At the start it is melted butter with sugar sitting in it; when the apples are done, it is a single glossy syrup that coats the fruit and pools in the bottom of the bowl. If it still looks like wet sugar, the apples need another minute.

Timing depends on the apple and the microwave. Three Golden Delicious apples in a 1,000-watt microwave take about 6 minutes in total; Granny Smith take closer to 7, and a lower-powered microwave adds a minute or two. Check at 5 minutes and go from there in one-minute steps, because overcooked apples go straight from tender to applesauce.

Make It Ahead

Microwave baked apples are a dessert worth making ahead, because they reheat in the same bowl in a minute. Cook them up to three days in advance, cool them, and refrigerate them covered. The sauce thickens and sets a little in the fridge; a minute in the microwave loosens it again, and a stir brings it back to glossy.

The apples can also be cut a few hours ahead if you toss them with a teaspoon of lemon juice to stop them browning. Keep the butter, sugar and cinnamon separate until you are ready to cook, because the sugar draws juice out of the fruit if it sits.

Storing Microwave Baked Apples

Cool leftovers within two hours and refrigerate them in an airtight container for up to four days. Reheat a serving in the microwave for 45 to 60 seconds, stirring once, or eat them cold from the fridge, which is not a bad way to have them over yogurt. Leftover microwave baked apples are also excellent warm over oatmeal, pancakes or a slice of pound cake.

They freeze well. Pack cooled apples and sauce into a freezer container, leaving room at the top, and freeze for up to three months. Thaw overnight in the fridge or reheat from frozen in the microwave in one-minute bursts, stirring between them. The texture is a little softer after freezing, so frozen batches are best stirred into something rather than served alone in a glass.

Variations and Substitutions

Other Ways to Change It

Pears. Firm pears such as Bosc, cut the same size, cook in about the same time. A mix of apples and pears is lovely.

Brown sugar and nutmeg. Brown sugar in place of white and a pinch of nutmeg with the cinnamon, for a darker, spicier sauce closer to pie filling.

Oats and nuts. A spoonful of granola or toasted pecans over the top in the glass adds the crunch that a crumble would. Stir chopped walnuts in for the last minute of cooking if you want them warm.

Caramel. A spoonful of caramel sauce stirred in after cooking turns these into caramel apples in a glass. Homemade caramels melted over the top work too.

Dairy-free. Coconut oil or a plant-based butter in place of the butter, and a non-dairy vanilla ice cream on top. The sauce is slightly thinner.

Less sugar. One tablespoon instead of two with a sweet apple, or a teaspoon of maple syrup for the sweetness without the sauce.

What to Serve with Microwave Baked Apples

Vanilla ice cream is the serving in the photographs and the one to start with. If you make your own, the ice cream maker recipes on the site include a plain vanilla that is made for this. Greek yogurt is the breakfast version, and a spoonful of rice pudding underneath turns it into a proper cold-weather pudding.

For a fall dinner, these follow a plate of Swedish meatballs or anything with a roast in it, and a spiced cider cocktail alongside keeps the apple theme going. A warm Texas Roadhouse roll with cinnamon honey butter is the carb to serve if the apples are breakfast.

Leftovers are best used rather than reheated as is: warm over oatmeal, spooned into a yogurt parfait or stirred through a bowl of Waldorf salad for a cooked-and-raw apple contrast.

Microwave Baked Apples FAQ

More Questions About Cooking Apples in the Microwave

Three apples, a bowl and seven minutes in the microwave, then ice cream on top. Microwave baked apples are the dessert for the night you want something warm without turning the oven on, and a spiced cider cocktail beside the glass finishes the evening.